Book Special: Data Game
My new book, Data Game: The Story of Liverpool FC’s Analytics Revolution, was officially released earlier this week.
So I’ve decided to do something different for this week’s post on the paid side of my Substack. After over two years of writing and creating my first book, it was officially released on Monday.
Data Game: The Story of Liverpool FC’s Analytics Revolution is now available to buy in stores and online, and for those who are based in the US, you can pre-order here before it’s eventual release in July.
To celebrate its launch, this post is all about my book.
Also, as a side note, I’ll be doing a book signing event at Waterstones in Liverpool One on May 1. I’ll be joined by The Anfield Wrap’s Neil Atkinson for an hour and a half to talk about the Reds. You can buy your ticket for £5 here.
Above, you can listen to a 10-minute chat about the story behind Data Game with myself and John Gibbons of The Anfield Wrap. We talk about John Henry, Jürgen Klopp aligning Liverpool’s vision, Naby Keïta and recruitment based on goal difference. And a longer 45-minute version is available on their platform for anybody who wants to listen.
Below, you can read one of the chapters of my book in full. After much deliberation, I decided to choose Truth Serum, which covers the presence of bias in football and how Liverpool consciously tried to ignore the noise surrounding certain players by focusing on the signal instead.
Data Game, Chapter Nine: Truth Serum
In 2019, RunRepeat conducted a study surrounding the presence of bias in football. The Danish research firm analysed 2,073 statements from commentators in 80 football matches, discussing 643 unique players of various races and skin tones. Their findings suggested that, when talking about intelligence, 62.6 per cent of praise was directed at players with lighter skin, whereas 63.3 per cent of criticism was aimed at those with darker skin. When speaking about power, commentators were around 6.6 times more likely to be talking about players with darker skin tones. When talking about work ethic, 60.4 per cent of praise was aimed at players with lighter skin tones.
Bias is far and wide in sport, and it comes in numerous different forms. Arsenal once passed up on the opportunity to sign Virgil van Dijk because he was deemed to be ‘too nonchalant’ by Steve Rowley, their leading scout, upon inspection of his game during his time at Celtic. Who could forget Matthijs de Ligt’s claims that a club once opted against signing him from Ajax because his father was regarded as ‘too fat’ and the club in question feared that he was destined to follow in his footsteps?
Whether it’s conscious or unconscious, players are often judged and evaluated because of irrelevancies. Too much attention tends to be given to details that simply don’t matter. If a football player decides to wear gloves on the pitch, they can be sure that some spectators, including scouts, will derive conclusions about elements of their character. A male player’s hairstyle can impact how he’s perceived, and the same goes for whether a player is inclined to shout at their team-mates or not. From a player’s nationality to the colour of their football boots to the number of cars in the garage to whether or not they watch football in their spare time, opinions are forever being shaped. The infamous and perhaps exaggerated recruitment scene in Moneyball involves scouts coming to conclusions about a baseball player because of the shape of his jawline and the appearance of his girlfriend. Some elements matter, others certainly do not.
Between October 2015 and February 2022, Liverpool bought 23 players for Jürgen Klopp, including free transfers. Ian Graham’s favourite signings were those that likely wouldn’t have otherwise happened without his expert assistance. He has a thing for players who tend to drift under the radar, and he’s publicly confessed as much. Data allows him to cut through the bias attached to scouting for talent. ‘I don’t like video, it biases you,’ he told the New York Times. His thoughts on players are almost exclusively determined by statistics. After watching Naby Keïta perform against Leicester City in 2018, Graham was asked whether the Guinean midfielder had played well against the Foxes by his interviewer, Bruce Schoenfeld. He wouldn’t respond with an answer until he had consulted the data the following day.
‘The players I really like are those who shine through in the data, but don’t naturally shine through for your typical football fan or scout,’ he said. ‘Awkward, ungainly players, or players who have been overlooked, for various other purposes.’ Keïta was one of Graham’s leading lights. He was an analytics darling who portrayed himself as a restless, all-action midfielder in the numbers. The norm for most players was to add to their team’s goal difference by contributing in attack or defence, but Keïta dazzled across the board. The numbers depicted him as an outlier in comparison to his peers. ‘We try to put everything into one currency, so football is measured in goals, it’s what gets you a win,’ said Graham. ‘We try to take whatever action a player does on a pitch – a pass, a shot, a tackle if you’re a defender – and ask the question: what was this team’s chance of scoring a goal before this action happened, and what was the team’s chance of scoring a goal after that action happened? We call that Goal Probability Added.’
Keïta was always best loved by those who consulted data before forming their opinions. StatsBomb’s Ted Knutson produced an article in 2016 on possible midfield reinforcements for Arsenal. ‘If I am buying one central midfielder in Europe right now, it’s Naby Keïta,’ he wrote. ‘Need a DM? Naby Keïta. Need an 8? Naby Keïta. A 10 that scores, creates and destroys? Na-bee Kay-tuh’. The far-reaching scouting network of Red Bull had possession of his services at the time. He spent two years in Salzburg between 2014 and 2016, before switching to Leipzig to test his qualities against better players in Germany, all while executing an intense playing style to uphold the values of Red Bull as an energy drink brand. He was athletic, dynamic and unpredictable, and whether Keïta was fielded in deeper areas or further forward, his influence was always noticeable, particularly in the numbers.
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